


Eye

by HeyMcRaely



Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 08:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyMcRaely/pseuds/HeyMcRaely
Summary: For the boys from Scumbag, Halloween Eve goes exactly the way you'd imagine.





	Eye

The night before Halloween, Madness eggs the Scumbag house. Neil is first to notice.

"Hey, hey! Those are really expensive, man!" he shouts behind the living room window. An egg splats hard on the glass in front of his face. He doesn't even flinch. "Now that wasn't very polite, I'm vegetarian!" An egg explodes against the back of his head.

"Guys! Guys!" Neil shouts up the stairs, scrambling the hall carpet on his way out. "We're under attack!"

Out on the front step, the eggs whistle like missiles. Neil tries to catch them. They explode on the threshold, crack in his hands. 

"Now--now, guys!" Neil kneels, scoops goo from the lawn statue. "This is loads of breakfasts you're wasting, do you know how many chickens died for this?" 

"Chickens lay the eggs, they don't live in them, you stupid--" Rick's voice is cut off as he is hit square in the chest, not two seconds after stepping outside.

"Ah, the eternal question: what came first?" Mike appears alongside Rick. He points at the mess on Rick's chest. "Looks like it was the other guy."

"AHHHHHHHH!!!" Vyvyan comes tearing along the side of the house with a heavy pot in hand. He drops himself onto the lawn, legs wide. He raises a ladle from the pot.

"Aw Vyv, not dinner!" Neil's hands are running with yolk. "It took four hours and seven bus rides to the shops and back to get that made!"

"YOU WANT THIS OVER EASY OR OVER HARD??" Vyvyan doesn't wait for an answer. He begins launching hulking spoonfuls of cold, soupy lentils over the hedges in the band's general direction. Piano keys plunk. There's a wet thump on a snare drum.

"YOUR MUSIC IS WORSE THAN WHAM!" Rick screams. He ducks in time. Mike doesn't need to duck.

The eggs' flight path focuses on Vyvyan, who launches lentils like a slingshot. Gray lumps arc. Gunk dances in the cold October air. Either his spoonfuls are taking out fighters, or Madness is running out of ammunition. After a frenzied sixty seconds, the firing stops altogether. There is silence. Only Vyvyan's heavy breathing.

Rick, crouched behind an eggy Neil, stands. "Filthy commies!"

That's when the toilet paper starts. 

Streaming, zigging, zagging over the grass, landing in puddles of eggmuck, blinding Mike, tenting the trees and making a gigantic spider's web of the entire house. Any lentils Vyvyan lobs only stick in the tissue and drag a sopping mess down onto the boys' heads.

"Back in the house!" Mike orders. 

They dash in. Neil comes up last, reeling in paper.

"Aw, this is great Mike, yeah, we ran out of this stuff two weeks ago!" he says.

"I thought we were fine off using Rick's socks." -Vyvyan. Rick's eyes widen.

"Alright fellas, there is a situation and it is situated on our front lawn." Mike rests his hands on his hips. "Now either we run like cowards, or we fight like fools. Either way the entire neighborhood could be unrecognizable by daybreak."

"The neighborhood? Do they REALLY think they have any other nemesis?" Rick laughs superiorly. "I have a very hard time believing they hate anyone as much as us."

"Hear hear!" Mike agrees. 

"There there!" Neil shouts.

They turn--Vyvyan is being dragged, screaming across the kitchen floor, his ankle trapped in a ribbon of toilet paper that yanks him toward the back yard. A rush of bodies. Rick grabs an arm, Mike grabs an arm, Neil straddles legs and grabs belt loops.

"BLOODY BASTARDS!" Vyvyan screams. "BLOODY ROTTEN CARNY BASTARDS!"

"Who left that door open?" Mike grimaces, yanks Vyvyan hard.

"Petyr was clawing at the door, they needed to go out," Rick huffs. His cheeks puff with the effort of keeping Vyvyan from being ripped out of his hands. 

"Could we just like, take your boots off, Vyv? It should come right off easily after that--" Neil asks.

"NO!" --a resounding chorus from everyone.

"Rip the toilet paper, Neil!" Mike groans. Neil twists and tries. His hands shake with the effort.

"Oh noooo it's ultra-strength!"

Mike makes direct eye contact with the living room wall. "That's what I call a heavy-duty tissue," he says to no one. He's not sure why he does that.

SPG darts, animatronic-like from the murk under the oven. 

"Maybe SPG will help!" Neil cries.

The rodent springs, lands on Vyvyan's bottom. 

"I may never get another chance to do this!" he squeals in a voice higher than the boys can hear, and he bites Vyvyan through the seat of his jeans.

"YOU BLOODY RAT!!" Vyvyan kicks, almost bucking off both Neil and his pet. Neil wrestles the hamster's teeth out of the denim. He drags the rabid, biting animal like gift-wrap cutter over the strip of toilet paper, and with a sound like a chainsaw, the tissue snaps. Vyvyan is free.

But more toilet paper is unfurling into the house. It comes in through the open back door. One roll smashes a window.

"We're doomed! We'll die like vegetables in our own soup!" Rick still holds Vyvyan's arm. "Proletariat victims of the bourgeoisie's insensitivity to the expense of common household items!"

"Oh great. I knew something would happen when my evil eye talisman went missing this morning." Neil's shoulders slump.

"You mean that shiny blue biscuit?" Vyvyan is face-down on the floor. "No, no, Petyr ate that."

A pause. 

"Petyr what?"

A rumble, deep and indigo from outside. It grows in volume. Becomes more vast. All-encompassing. Unforgiving. The ground shakes. The house squeaks. Dishes applaud in the cupboard. Mike loses his balance. Rick holds onto Vyvyan harder.

The windows glow cobalt. The toilet paper unwinds itself from the floor and out the door. Egg drips upward off the windows. Screams and a clang of guitars sound from the lawn. Something like laughter rips the ceiling, the roof, the sky. The whole world echoes for a moment, and then silence. Pitch dark outside.

Petyr, all of three feet tall, somehow sitting with their legs hunched up, but also crawling, but also not moving, shuffles quickly in from outside, passes unnoticed behind the boys, and disappears into the front hall. 

The back door swings shut.


End file.
